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A CFO Success Story: Sajid Malhotra, CFO of Limelight Networks

Sajid Malhotra, CFO at Limelight Networks

The following is a summary of our interview with Sajid Malhotra, who was appointed CFO of Limelight Networks in April 2016, as announced in CFO Moves. Prior to being appointed CFO, Sajid was Chief Strategy Officer at Limelight Networks, and worked in strategy roles at Convergys, NCR Corporation and AT&T.

Samuel Dergel: Please tell us about what motivated you to become CFO

Sajid Malhotra: Professionally I recognized the higher responsibility and opportunity to assist in turning around the business. In my previous role as head of strategy, I could influence but this was clearly a lot more.  The personal motivation was that I have a desire to assist other company Boards and being at a C-Level position would facilitate that goal.

SD: What challenges did you face becoming CFO when you were not classically trained for the role?

SM: I was at the right place at the right time. There was an abrupt departure of the CFO and I expressed interest to be the next CFO. I knew that the role would be a challenge but I felt, based on the underlying support team, there was low probability of failure and a very high probability of success. I felt I possessed the right skill set to turnaround the business for all stakeholders and wanted to take on the challenge of being a key member to turn a broken business into a successful one. Despite the position being outside of my comfort zone, I recognized, it was an opportunity I should not pass up.

SD: Did you find it challenging to move into the CFO role, acquire a new team and get the results that you need (or able to get them to perform)?

SM: I am a firm believer of not reducing workforces and in giving the incumbents the first chance. I believe keeping and motivating my team is the first order of business.  My job is to make the team and the environment I inherit better. Over the course of my 30-year career, I have let the same principle guide me, regardless of the company, the industry or size.

SD: What do you feel are the key qualities for successful leadership?

SM: Leading by example, honesty and transparency, is a requirement.  Leading by example and letting my team see how I interact with all around me, my sense of commitment and responsibility helps modify team behavior accordingly.  People self-learn and perform.

SD: How important is it to have your people believe in you?

SM: Extremely important.  I cannot do this alone.  With my team, I can.  My resume, experience and capabilities are important elements to getting a job but to be successful, it is all about the team working together towards a common goal and with a clear and unified purpose.

SD: How do you deal with change?

SM: I don’t think people handle change well in general. I have found that when you get the first series of changes and are successful, momentum picks up, employees attitudes change, and the trend becomes your friend.

SD: How are relationships important to you?

SM: Strategy and M&A are transactional roles.  The CFO position requires higher engagement and entanglement, not just with the employees, but with vendors, customers, shareholders, community and competitors.  I may have underestimated the amount of time investment required to be good at all this.  It is a requirement for success.

SD: In your experience, what has been the difference between giving advice vs. taking advice?

SM: I always found it easy to give advice to CEOs, CFOs and boards but taking advice is 180 degrees different.  Much, much easier to give and I have higher respect for those who constantly receive.

SD: How important is time management to a CFO?

SM: The CFO position requires a lot of time to do the job well and everyone is asking for your time. It is very easy to get buried in work if one does not manage time well and so, it is crucial to manage it well. We only have 24 hours in a day and time is an equalizer. Do a few things and do them well.  Delegate the balance to trusted team members.  Opportunities will only return what you invest in them.

SD: What advice do you have for contemporaries considering taking on the CFO role?

SM: Self-awareness as well as conviction are key. The CFO is the gatekeeper to the value vault.  Do it well and you create value, do it poorly and you destroy value.  Setting expectations and priorities before accepting the role rather than figuring them out after you have accepted the position is important.  Ask for help.  Take help.  Leave personal biases at the door.

SD: Now that you’ve been CFO for over a year, what is your impression about the Office of the CFO?

SM: The CFO is most often the second most important role at any company, and for good reason.  I find it an honor to be a CFO.  I am temporarily occupying a position and an office.  I need to make sure I don’t dilute the role for those who will follow me.

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A CFO Success Story is a feature of Samuel’s CFO Blog, where Samuel Dergel follows up on his book, Guide to CFO Success, speaking with CFOs featured in CFO Moves and CFO Moves Canada, Samuel’s popular and comprehensive weekly report on CFO Movement across the USA and Canada.

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A CFO Success Story: Jim Burns, CFO of Accela

Jim Burns - CFO of Accela

Jim Burns – CFO of Accela

The following is from an interview with Jim Burns. Jim became CFO of Accela in June 2016. Previously, Jim served as CFO of Silver Spring Networks, as announced in CFO Moves. This interview was edited for clarity.

  • Quick Takes from Jim Burns on…
    Some key challenges to a rapidly growing software companyReally making sure that you integrate well and deliver on your promise. Progress shifting from more license based models to cloud based and recurring SaaS based models.

    Older tech companies having a difficult time growing

    There’s been such a shift to cloud, and to analytics, and to SaaS. New companies, those that are starting the kind of legacy free, are the ones where all the growth is coming from.

    Advice to future CFOs

    Get as broad a level of business and operational experience as you can. You get a totally different perspective looking through the lens of somebody in the business versus somebody in finance. I’m seeing more and more CFOs these days that didn’t come up through the public accounting ranks.

    The new CEO/CFO relationship

    It seems CEO increasingly wants to be able to spend their time externally making a name for the company with customers and wants a CFO that can make sure that everything, not just the numbers, come together, and that the business is operationally being optimized continuously too.

    Building your career

    Take chances to do jobs you’ve never done before. Your job isn’t just to run it, but to make it substantially better when you left the role versus when you started it.  I shy away from jobs where everything is working perfectly when you go in, because there really is no other way but down.

Samuel: Congratulations on your move to Accela. How do you feel? What are you excited about?

Jim: Well, this is a company that I had to do a fair bit of digging into, to get familiar with it, before joining. And the more I learned about it the more excited I got. They’re really in a great place, and there’s not a lot of competitors. If you think about the enterprise software space, there are so many people trying to get in, and this company has been a market leader and it’s successful. Once you get into state/local governments business, it’s about as sticky as it gets. They just don’t churn very much. It really builds a nice client base, SaaS platform from civic engagement, they’ve been broadening their portfolios through both, organic development and quite a number of acquisitions, and I think it’s just a very exciting space to be. If you look through some of the comparatives they have in the public marketplace, they traded eight nine times sales multiples, because investors just appreciate how strong and sticky this business is. So that’s very attractive. Also the management team is great and the board is great, and everyone is very engaged and focused, and that’s a big deal for me too.

Samuel: At what point in time during the interview process did you decide that this is the place for me, this is where I want to go?

Jim: My initial interview with the CEO was very good and then I got even more excited talking to Mark Jung, who’s the chairman of the company. Mark has been around quite a number of opportunities and he’s been CEO of multiple places and on multiple boards. He really validated everything I hoped the opportunity would be, and then some. So it was fairly early on that I got excited that this might be a great thing.

Samuel: You’re in, and you’re trying to figure your way around this new organization. What do you see are the challenges ahead of you?

Jim: I think the markets are growing great, the company has been through a lot of change recently with quite a number of acquisitions. And that’s heavy lifting and the company is working through it. They made nine acquisitions over just a few years. So really making sure that we integrate that well and deliver on the promise, that we get them making great progress shifting from more license based models to cloud based and recurring SaaS based models. And that’s a wonderful thing to do when you’re private versus public. So just continuing the post that mix shift and in trying to get the EBIT margins where they can be for a company of this size.

Samuel: You’ve come from HP, the technology company that it was and still is a very large and successful business. And you’ve made a transition in both your previous opportunity and this opportunity to a much more entrepreneurial, high growth situation. Tell me about that. How was the experience, what have you learned?

Jim: That is a very interesting question. The HP that I left was very different than the HP that I joined back in the late 80s. Hewlett and Packard had set the company up and the very engineering culture to go after growth opportunities. They then realized that the real brilliant engineers did not want to work amongst thousands of other engineers, so they set the company up as a bunch of small to mid-size businesses that had all the resources they needed to either succeed or fail. Most businesses I worked with were anywhere between four to six hundred people-sized businesses. The HP I left had consolidated so much. The division I was in had a hundred and thirty thousand people. So when I went to Silver Spring it was kind of like going back to my original HP route. It was seven hundred people, 300 million dollars in revenue. And Accela is very much in the same boat. Honestly, I enjoyed the earlier days in HP better than the late days in HP, even though I had a much more senior level of responsibility. It’s the difference between flying, with a dashboard in the cockpit versus being able to see through like a crop duster and see through the windshield and know everything that’s going on. It’s just because of the scale of it. Most of the old tech companies are having a difficult time growing right now because there’s been such a shift to cloud, and to analytics, and to SaaS. And new companies, like Accela, the ones that are starting the kind of legacy free, are the ones where all the growth is coming from. And a being part of that growth story is very exciting.

Samuel: Now that you’re in the growth game, with nimble companies that are very different than the HP that you left. What preconceived notions fell by the wayside once you’ve made it into Silver Spring?

Jim: Honestly, there was a lot that I was able to bring from a process maturity standpoint from HP that Silver Spring needed to grow to. Companies go through different transitions. They go through a starter phase and then they go to a scaling phase and then they go to a more mature optimization phases. And then, unfortunately some of them start to go in decline after that. When I joined Silver Spring, it has just gone IPO six months before, so it kind of had a successful chapter one but it was really struggling with the growing pains of the company. And a lot of the entrepreneurial types that are drawn to startups really shun structure. They don’t want structure. And yet the lack of process and structure was really bootstrapping the company. So I think I came in at a good time when the company needed to put some more process and more discipline and some more rigor in terms of how the portfolio was planned and reviewed. How the businesses were run. Kind of getting the businesses do more of a sinus rhythm so that you could run more collaboratively cross functionally, etc. I consider myself a good chapter 2 guy, and I think Accela is in the same boat now. They’ve made a great name for themselves and now it’s just all about continuing to scale larger and do acquisitions and integrate them effectively and operate in multiple geographies and countries. It’s just a different way of working, but it’s what I like doing, it’s what attracted me to Silver Spring and what attracted me to Accela now.

Samuel: Now that you’re CFO and you’re on your way to another success, what advice do you have for those that are aiming to move into that senior role over the next coming year?

Jim: I think that getting as broad level of business and operational experience as you can. I spent nine years outside the finance function. In HP I was general manager of a couple of businesses. I ran multiple different operational supply chains and services and support and sales operations. You just get a totally different perspective looking through the lens of somebody in the business versus somebody in finance. I’m seeing more and more CFOs these days that didn’t necessarily cut their teeth and come up through the public accounting ranks. They’ve had a broader blend of operations. I think the CEO increasingly wants to be able to spend their time externally making a name for the company with customers and wants a CFO that can really make sure that everything, not just the numbers come together, but that the business is operationally being optimized continuously too.

Samuel:  What do you feel has made you successful?

Jim: I think the combination of getting the mentors through my career that not only helped and coached me, but took chances on me to do jobs that I had never done before. Because I had kind of shown a track record before. I always believe your job isn’t just to run it, your job is to make it substantially better when you left the role versus when you started it. I took a lot of jobs where people told me to stay away, people who take those jobs get fired, kind of high complexity jobs, and those ended up being some of my more rewarding roles. Because when you go into something you really can make a name for yourself, it’s demonstratively better when you leave the role versus when you join the role. As long as the right elements are there for the role, there’s any number of roles. I sort of shy away from things where everything is working perfectly when you go into it because there really is no other way but down. This job at Accela has got all the things I want – relative to having a good fast growing market and good leadership position. But also a number of things internally that can use my experience and help to allow them to reach their goals a little quicker.

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A CFO Success Story is a feature of Samuel’s CFO Blog, where Samuel Dergel follows up on his book, Guide to CFO Success, speaking with CFOs featured in CFO Moves and CFO Moves Canada, Samuel’s popular and comprehensive weekly report on CFO Movement across the USA and Canada.

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A CFO Success Story: Naresh Bansal, CFO of Actiance

Naresh Bansal - CFO of Actiance

Naresh Bansal – CFO of Actiance

The following is from an interview with Naresh Bansal. Naresh became CFO of Actiance in May 2016. Previously, Naresh served as Vice President, Finance of ZScaler, as announced in CFO Moves. This interview was edited for clarity.

Samuel: What attracted you to Actiance?

Naresh: For the last 4 – 5 years, I was at a company called Zscaler that has done extremely well. I helped the company grow from a company of less than 200 people to a company of well over 800 people. But what really piqued my interest was there is such phenomenal opportunity for similar growth at Actiance. And after talking to the executive team and board members, and realizing how committed they were. It really helped solidify my interest in the company, and I decided that I do want to be part of this success story. The product which they had developed is so completely ahead of the technology curve, in the potential that it offers. It has a great executive team as well as great backers.

  • Quick Takes from Naresh Bansal on…

    The new CFO

    The role of the CFO has evolved so much, we cannot do just finance; we have to make sure that we understand and are partnering with all the other parts of the organization – like marketing, sales, engineering, pretty much every part of the organization. You need to understand that they are part of the business, and to be a partner of that.

    Dealing with rapid growth

    You need to make sure there are defined processes around that growth. Especially when you’re growing at such a fast pace – it becomes even more important that we have all the processes in place. You need to make sure that you’re thinking ahead of the curve.

    Developing your team

    Give them more responsibility. People want to be challenged. If you have people who are hungry to get more, they won’t be satisfied unless they are constantly being challenged. If people are given additional responsibility and accountability, they will rise to it.

    Learning from others

    Be very open – if your counterpart has a better idea, be open to adopting their idea. Be collaborative. It’s not about people imposing their will on the next.

    Networking is key

    You have to be constantly staying in touch with your network. It could be anyone. It could be the auditor that you work with, your external vendor that you work with. We all need to make a very conscience effort – this has to become second nature.

Samuel: Each career move that you’ve made has been good for you. What does this opportunity have for you, in your ability to deliver and accomplish, that some of the other maybe didn’t?

Naresh: I feel that the opportunity at Actiance is unique. When I look at the market opportunity, they have the top ten of the ten top banks as their customers. And it’s the ability of the company to monetize those customers. That was a very compelling reason.

For me, having been the head of finance for my last company, this was a phenomenal opportunity to step into the more official CFO role of the company and help them grown substantially, to drive the strategy, drive the approach.

This company is at the intersection of big data, social media and compliance. And all of these three markets are all growing at a phenomenal pace. This is reacting to great opportunities, in a much more regulated environment.

Samuel: What are some of the new challenges that face you in this new adventure at Actiance?

Naresh: There are 2 kinds of software companies. There are companies that have been born in the cloud. There are some companies that have been around for a while and are transitioning to the cloud. Actiance has both of those aspects. Actiance has been in a transition where they have been moving from a perpetual software licensing model to a cloud model. And this is really what I brought to the table – that past experience of having been in those fast growing SaaS companies. Bringing that mindset in terms of how you look at metrics, which metrics to look at, how operationally should we be looking at, whether we should be looking at the pricing strategy, looking at the compensation strategy for the sales teams, looking at it across the board, looking at how the planning needs to be done, etc. In SaaS companies, it’s a very different approach to all of these things.

The second aspect is the rapid-growth the company was experiencing. How do you make sure there are defined processes around that growth? Especially when you’re growing at such a fast pace – it becomes even more important that we have all the right processes in place. And if we don’t have all those processes in place, then we’re putting them in place. We’re putting all the systems, the controls, the whole environment. When you’re a small company, you do what you do. But as you’re growing, you have to make sure that you’re thinking ahead of the curve, and that you have all of the right systems, the right processes. And looking at where the team has the experience and the tools to help build us to the next level.

Samuel: Do you feel have enough of the right team members necessary to accomplish what you need?

Naresh: It’s like anything else – as the company grows, there are different talents of people that we need to look at. As of today, when I entered the organization, there is the absolutely the right amount of people that we need. The people here are phenomenally dedicated. We do have the right team. But as the company grows, we need to make sure we have the correct leaders in all the areas.

Samuel: What are some of the top CFO challenges that face growth companies – like yours – today?

Naresh: Every company is different. Every industry is different. And every stage of growth is different. If you’re dealing with a very fast rate – how do you balance all of the requirements and all of the resources? Finance is one of the areas that you should be able to help with that. But what other things can you look at? How can I help the sales team deliver their growth objectives? How can I make sure as the CFO, I’m the enabler of that growth and not the impediment? It needs to be a good balance where you are growing at a very good rate, but at the same time making sure you keep your burn to a minimum. And where you are adding value to your investment along the way. To me, that’s the main challenge – how do you grow at a fast rate? And making sure that you’re very disciplined about your capital allocation.

Samuel: As a leader. How do you develop other leaders?

Naresh: There is the hiring of people who are very smart – even if they haven’t done everything, but that they smart and have a lot of potential. The other aspect to being a leader is to give your team a lot of guidance and mentoring and tutoring along the way, to be in a position that you’re able to guide other people, and to groom these folks to become the future leaders.

And the third element is giving them more responsibility. People want to be challenged. If you have the right people who are hungry to get more, they won’t be satisfied unless they are constantly being challenged. To me, if people are given additional responsibility and accountability, people will grow. The problem then is – how can I grow? If I have a strong team, that going to help me grow? Will it help my role, help me to do more things, help me to partner with other parts of the business in a more effective manner. To me it’s all about hiring the right people. Helping and grooming them by providing them coaching, and by giving them more responsibility along the way.

Samuel: Other than the CEO, who do you feel is the most important business partner for the head of finance in any organization?

Naresh: Well, the CEO is the most important. But when I look across the table, everyone who is on the executive team is a critical component of that. Also marketing and sales are among the most important people. If you’re looking only at the numbers, everything smells great, everything looks great. So you need to ask yourself – how can I partner with the sales team to make them into a high performance organization, making sure they have the right quotas, making sure they have the right compensation structures in place. On the flip side, it’s sort of making sure we’re setting the targets in the right way. And by providing the correct incentives for the marketing leadership so they can effectively deliver. Supporting these guys with a large enough budget allocation so they can have the right tools in order to deliver these numbers. So it’s a very important partnership with sales and marketing.

Similarly, for cloud operations and engineering, it’s about making sure we’re growing in all the appropriate areas – that we have enough engineering talent, that we’re bringing in more and more, and that we’re doing it cost effectively. Whether it’s putting all the data centers we have in different parts of the world, making sure we have the right contacts in place, so we can help the company scale as we grow. And since we are growing, we need to be looking at expanding in different geographies, and building multiple data centers.

Samuel: What’s your style to get the other senior-level executives to work together with you?

Naresh: We are very fortunate in that it is very collaborative – we all feel and believe we are going in the same direction. How do we make this company a big success? Everyone is looking for the ideas. And similarly, I’m very open to ideas – if my counterpart has a better idea, I’m very open to adopting their idea. Or if I have an idea, they are very open to adopting my ideas. It’s very collaborative. It’s not about people imposing their will on the next. Because, in the end of the day, it’s about how to create value for everybody.

Samuel: What advice would you give to finance professionals who want to grow into the CFO chair?

Naresh: The role of the CFO has evolved so much, we cannot do just finance; we have to make sure that we understand and are partnering with all the other parts of the organization – like marketing, sales, engineering, to pretty much every part of the organization. You need to be able to understand that they are part of the business, and to be a partner with the rest of the executive team. And not even just the executive team – but all the different parts of the organization, to understand their needs and their requirements. How to work with them in a better way, to collaborate and help grow the company. That’s one aspect.

The external factor is networking. Networking is key. If you know your friends are the board members or the people that you work with, it’s not like you meet them once and they’re going to call you the next day for an opening. Because you only want them to call you when they have an awesome opportunity. Not just any opportunity that they have available. You have to be constantly staying in touch with your network, whether it’s the board member that you’ve worked with in the past, or some of the executives that admire your work and that you played a role in their success. It could be anyone. It could be the auditor that you work with, your external vendor that you work with. Everybody will want to work with somebody that has good success. And can bring success to your organization.

Samuel: You’re preaching to the converted. All finance professionals will agree with that in principal, but they’ll always say – I’m too busy. How is someone like yourself able to give attention to that while being very busy?

Naresh: This is one of those things where I wish I could do a lot more. It’s true, the job that you have at hand is far more important. But at the same time, networking is great. Some of the things that I have done personally is that I’m part of the local CFO group here which is call FEI, and they have the monthly dinner. And I at least try to go, if not every month then at least every other month. It’s a great avenue where they bring in a great speaker and have a dinner meeting, so at least you’re not taking anything away from your day. And then you have the fabulous chance to meet the rest of the leaders of the CFOs, share your ideas, and just be able to network. And even in my day to day job, things come up where I might have some questions, but at least I know I have a network of people who I can call and ask for guidance, and ask – have you ever had the same challenge? And how have you dealt with that challenge of such a scenario. Without sharing anything confidential. People generally want to help each other out. I’ve had people call me, asking for advice, and I actually feel like I’m privileged enough to be able to help out somebody.

Samuel: Anything else you want to share with our readers?

Naresh: I think we all need to make a very conscience effort to network – this has to become second nature. Especially as a CFO. Because, especially in my world, you’re not just managing your company, but your also constantly hiring as well. Networking is the key. And to try to learn and absorb. Every year – what have I added on to my skill sets. What more have I learned? And not just be content and think I’m the one who knows everything.

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A CFO Success Story is a feature of Samuel’s CFO Blog, where Samuel Dergel follows up on his book, Guide to CFO Success, speaking with CFOs featured in CFO Moves and CFO Moves Canada, Samuel’s popular and comprehensive weekly report on CFO Movement across the USA and Canada.

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A CFO Success Story: Vinay Mehra, CFO of POLITICO

Vinay Mehra

Vinay Mehra – CFO of POLITCO

The following is from an interview with Vinay Mehra. Vinay became CFO of POLITICO in November 2015. Previously, Mehra served as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of the PBS/NPR media organization WGBH, as announced in CFO Moves. This interview was edited for clarity.

Samuel: You’ve embarked on a new role. Why is this exciting for you?

Vinay: The primary reason I came to Politico is because they have built a new business model. I love going into businesses that are creating and inventing new business models. Politico has redefined how to make money in the media business without just being dependent on the advertising side of it. That’s something that really attracted me– they not only created a new business model, but they are also hugely successful in this new business model, and I want to be part of that.

  • Quick Takes from Vinay Mehra on…

    What makes a good CFO?

    CFOs often forget that we are story tellers. And we need to tell a story with the numbers. We need to overlay the non-financial data with the financial data to complete the picture.

    Underappreciated skillsetThe most underappreciated skillset in finance is the cost-accounting mindset. Once you have a good understanding of true cost, and once you figure out how much of that is the standard cost, it becomes easier to manage and scale a business.

    Not-for-profits

    I find it very fulfilling. One tends to forget, in life, we all have the responsibility to give back to society. Whether it be money, or donating your time and skillset to a needy organization.

    Working with a millennial workforce

    This work force wants constant change and they’re not willing to stay with the status quo. Therefore they are constantly adopting new technologies, or adapting to new way of doing things.

    Importance of good HR

    The biggest assets here are the people. I really feel that HR is probably the most strategic department of this company. And that is where we have to make the investments.

    Something to remember

    The CFO is, in a way, the chief sales person. He is the one who sets the tone of what the organization is doing. He needs to keep providing a positive spin on how the business is doing. To be able to tell people the story even in the worst situation. He not only has to be a fabulous story teller, but also has to be a great sales person.

 

Samuel: You’ve had a good long run from your previous experience, in more of a television environment. And now you’re taking that to a new and exciting “new media” environment. What perspectives are you bringing to this new business from your years at WGBH?

Vinay: The first thing I can think of is that the most underappreciated skillset in finance is the cost-accounting mindset. The media business is heavily capital intensive. Having to understand the cost is really important. And thanks to my experience in accounting for 10 years, I had alot of clients – manufacturing clients, tech clients – one of the things they taught me was the concept of cost-accounting. Once you have a very good understanding of true cost, and once you can figure out how much of that cost is a standard cost, it make it much easier to manage and scale a business – rather than just focusing top line goals which is just the revenue side of it. And I think what TV broadcasting taught me is – that it is a business which is hugely capital intensive. For example, if we had 5 to 10 million dollars to make a TV show, we would have a very robust cost-accounting system. We would knew down to the penny, and down to an invoice, what everything was being spent on. And for which episode. So taking some of that same discipline is what I inherited from my experiences in the broadcast side of things and brought it into the “new media” side of things. And that was pretty hard to do – because you’ll have journalists writing their stories, and then they’re putting up their stories up on websites, or newspapers. And then you have to figure out how that translates to revenue – which are the stories that are actually driving traffic to the website, which are the stories that are driving revenue. And then figuring out the cost allocation system. So I think that going from old media to new media is where I found the benefit of having the ability to build a true-cost evaluating system.

On the revenue side, there is alot more diversity in the revenue field; more in new media than there is in the ‘traditional’ media space. Because the new media companies treat content as information, they don’t treat it as just content. The content that’s on the website should be driven by analytics. And they should decide what really makes sense to put on the website. But more importantly, let’s not just treat it as entertainment, let’s treat it as information. So there’s the mindset of it being an information company instead of being just a media company.

Samuel: What do you think makes you a good CFO?

Vinay: I think there are 2 kinds of CFO – there are CFOs who are very financial focused, and then there are CFOs like myself – CFOs who blend the financial and the non-financial data. What I have found in my career, what has made me successful is the fact that I am able to overlay the non-financial data with the financial data itself. So I can tell a story around what exactly is happening. And in every financial function I’ve had a small group of people doing data analytics. But they’re putting non-financial data and they’re trying to see if it tells a story. I think very often we CFOs forget that we are story tellers. And we need to tell a story with these numbers. Just by looking at the numbers it’s hard to tell a story, unless you have the non-financial information to overlay to show if there is some kind of a trend; or to show what is driving those financial numbers. So I would say that I am very much one of those people who loves to tell the stories behind the financial and the non-financial data.

Samuel: I also see that in your career you’ve been very involved in not-for-profits. How has that helped you?

Vinay: I think it’s very fulfilling. To be honest with you – one tends to forget, in life, we all have the responsibility to give back to society. And I personally found it very fulfilling to be involved in different causes – to give back to my city, my town, to my local cultural institution. And that’s one thing I would encourage everyone to try to do. It’s less about being on another board, its more about feeling how I’m able to give back. And giving back doesn’t necessarily need to be about giving money – it could be about giving your skillset, and your guidance to these organizations who don’t have allot of sophisticated management skills. They have a mission, and as long as you are in mind with the mission, you can help in many different ways. Helping to make it successful and running it like a business. Even a not-for-profit has to be run like a business and sometimes they lack the skillset. For me it was something very fulfilling, and something I’m glad I got involved with.

Samuel: And how did that benefit you? What impact did it have on you as a professional and as a CFO?

Vinay: Sometimes, as a CFO, you tend to look at things are pretty black and white. Things are just numbers. But when you get involved with a non-profit, the thing that I’ve come to appreciate is – sometimes, when you are making an investment, you don’t have a true ROI, from a financial perspective. But you will have ROI from a human impact. Or from the bigger benefit of the people, or of this country. For example – when I was in WGBH, very often we needed  build TV shows and I would say “hey – no one is ever going to buy this show, no one is ever going to agree to do a big sponsorship for it”. And while that’s true, someone needs to tell the story of lack of diversity, or to tell the story of some other area which nobody else is willing to put the money in to do, because they don’t see the financial ROI on it. But we have a responsibility to tell that story. So we’ll spend money on it because that’s really our core mission is – to educate people. So I would say it’s given me the appreciation to understand that sometimes in business you will make an investment in something that may not have a true ROI, but there will be other ways to measure ROI beyond the financial terms of things.

Samuel: What was most surprising for you when you showed up at Politico?

Vinay: The energy and the passion around their mission of providing political information to their audiences. They are all uniformly passionate about this subject. You know, it’s not often you walk into a business where everybody – from the administrative assistants, to the help in the kitchen – are all uniformly passionate about this stuff. It’s amazing. And it make everything alot easier, because everyone is aligned with the mission. Everybody is very passionate about what difference they want to make.

And the second thing – which came as a bit of a surprise for me – was the millennium demographic, which is a large proportion of our employee base – between 25 to 28. They’re working at a much faster pace than you or I do! And I love working fast and changing things, but this work force wants constant change and they’re not willing to stay with the status quo. Therefore they are constantly adopting new technologies, or adapting to new way of things. And they crave it, and they keep pushing for it. This has been a big surprise for me, coming from big corporations where change is so hard, and it’s so hard to get people on board, or to follow new ways of doing things.

Samuel: It must be a big change, coming from NPR-type of background, where you were truly middle-aged, taking a look at everyone around you. Coming from an environment where you were one of the younger ones, to an environment where you’re one of the older ones.

Vinay: Yes – and the other thing is I think their desire and energy for staying in the forefront of technology and processes – it’s in their DNA. You don’t have to tell these people – they live this every day – how can we do things better. They’re built this way. And I think some of it is maybe because you don’t have the luggage of a traditional media company and all the headaches of running a traditional media company. But this is a company that continues to innovate every day. In every way – from how to come up with new revenue ways, to how can we become more efficient to how to use new technology. It’s just blowing me away. And it’s very refreshing to be an environment like this.

Samuel: And how does that translate for your finance team?

Vinay: That’s where I would say I have work to do. Because the rest of the organization is so forward thinking that my finance team hasn’t kept pace, with their level of change. In some ways I think the finance team got comfortable with the old ways of doing things. As if it’s the only way to be doing things

Samuel: So what are you doing to put change into a finance group that needs to be changed a little bit?

Vinay: The first thing I’ve done is to physically relocate people from my finance team into business groups. The people who do invoicing and billings and collection for my ad business used to sit in finance, in a central location, and I’ve taken them out of there and said go sit in the unit. Go sit in the business. Go see what they do every day and be part of their workflow, instead of sitting separated on a different floor and communicating through emails. I think that’s given them a sense of appreciation how the business operated, that they never knew before.

Secondly, substituting some of the skill sets that are lacking on the team, I bring in new people. For instance, somebody with more experience and or somebody who is an expert in certain areas is going to have expertise in their DNA of the finance function and will be able to figure it out as they go along. Which works to a certain point, but then a lack of knowledge and a lack of expertise because of the hindrance.

And the third thing is technology. They are very advanced with leveraging and using technology here. And because of that, the business units have gone off and made selections of technology products to streamline their operations and their processes. And on the back end of things you have finance working on QuickBooks because they haven’t kept pace with the evolution and change that has happened in the business.

Samuel: What are you ultimately responsible for, at Politico?

Vinay: I have Finance, I have HR, and I have Operations. I have pretty much ALL the business operations of the business. Basically all the non-editorial side of things.

Samuel: Have you always had HR responsibility?

Vinay: I have. In different forms. In WGBH I had business managers in HRO sitting in the business units, who reported to me. So yes, I’ve always had some HR responsibility. Planning, strategy, all those groups reported up to me

Samuel: How does it feel to be responsible for human resources in an environment that’s growing, dynamic and where culture is a key part of the talent pool?

Vinay: To be honest – the biggest assets here are the people. They don’t really have any physical assets here. And so preserving that asset base is extremely critical, for the organization. And we are thinking about additional approaches – until now we took for granted that we’ll have 20-30% turnover and keep hiring new people. My philosophy is we need to find a better way of keeping this from happening instead of constantly dealing with this turnover. And I get excited about the fact that I can help influence and be a caretaker of the culture of the organization. I feel that it’s a great opportunity for the organization to be able get what they are looking for, from a cultural perspective. Sometimes I feel that an HR reports directly to the CEO of an organization, and they tend to take a more of an administrative function. I really feel that HR is very strategic and probably is the most strategic department of this company. And we have to make the investments here. This is where we need to put the most focus – to help make sure that we can keep our employees.

Samuel: What advice would you give to someone in finance that’s trying to work their way up and wants to become successful in their career? Advice that you wish someone would have told you?

Vinay: I would say that having an understanding of the numbers and the context of the business, the strategy of the business is extremely critical in this day and age to be a successful CFO. Early in my career, when I was in accounting, I think the reason why I was so successful with my clients is because I was able to focus on their business problems, not just their financial problems. Additionally, in some ways the CFO is also kind of the chief sales person. He is the one who sets the tone of what the organization is doing. He needs to keep providing a positive spin on how the business is doing. To be able to tell people the story even in the worst situation. And so what tends to sometimes happen is that we forget that we have the DNA of a sales-person. We need to use that. Whether we are talking to our salary employees, or if we’re talking in external shareholders or investors. And I feel that anyone who wants to grow their career in a finance perspective, not only has to be a fabulous story teller, but also has to be a sales person.

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A CFO Success Story is a feature of Samuel’s CFO Blog, where Samuel Dergel follows up on his book, Guide to CFO Success, speaking with CFOs featured in CFO Moves and CFO Moves Canada, Samuel’s popular and comprehensive weekly report on CFO Movement across the USA and Canada.

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A Solution for Lonely CFOs

Being CFO is a challenge.

CFOs are expected to be key contributors to the success of a company. They are regularly are called upon to make tough decisions, at times without the support of a sounding board.

Being CFO can be lonely but it doesn’t have to be.

Last year we launched a CFO Peer Group. CFOs from across North America meet in person and virtually. They have regular conference calls and spontaneous one-on-ones. In November they all convened for a day in Chicago. These CFOs found a comfortable setting in which to learn and share together with their peers.

In 2016, we are expanding our group. Members of this exclusive CFO Peer Group will have access to:

  • Annual in-person one day meeting in November 2016. Our first in-person CFO Peer Group meeting in Chicago this past November was a great success. These CFOs took time out of their busy schedules, spending one full day out of the office to meet their peers and discuss issues that were top of mind while networking and learning from others (just like you).
  • Regularly scheduled phone calls (8 times / year) where you will have an opportunity to speak with, interact and network with fellow CFOs. The topic of conversation will be what interests you. You will have the opportunity to discuss the challenges you face as CFO with your peers, and to listen, learn and network.
  • CFO Questions Forum, where you will be able to submit questions to your peers at any time. This could be helpful when looking for a template, facing a challenging relationship situation in your business, or need assistance to access a referral. Your CFO Peers will help you and you will be there to support them.
  • The opportunity to reach out spontaneously and confidentially to peers who you will come to respect and trust.

Unlike other CFO-oriented programs you may have attended in the past that spoke to you from a podium and a PowerPoint, our CFO Peer Group allows you and your peers to discuss topics that interest you, that are current, immediate and relevant to you. You drive the conversation – our role is to facilitate.

You can learn more about Samuel’s CFO Peer Group here and here.

There are only a few spaces available.

Meetings start in February. If you are a CFO and this interests you, please email us.

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A CFO Success Story: Mark MacLeod

Mark MacLeod – Founder, SurePath Capital Partners

The following is from an interview with Mark MacLeod. Mark left his position as CFO of Freshbooks and started his own advisory firm – SurePath Capital Partners, as announced in CFO Moves Canada. This interview was edited for clarity.

SD: Mark, you’re not like other CFOs. You have gone in and out of being CFO so many times, and because you’ve been on multiple sides of the board table, I felt it would be interesting to hear your perspective. So to start off – which job do you prefer – the CFO Job or the outside advisor job?

MM: It’s not as simple as that. I live to do two things – One is to advise founders and management teams, and the other is to do complex financial transactions. The thing that I liked about being a CFO at start-ups is that they were often in need of both. When I created SurePath Capital Partners, I created a company that only does both those things. When I had been a CFO and had been a close advisor to the CEO’s that I’d served and got to work on lots of transactions, then I’m a really happy guy. If I’m the CFO of a company and it’s well capitalized and were not doing acquisitions, and we’re not being acquired – if we’re just kind of running the ship, then that’s not so great for me.

  • Quick Takes from Mark on…

    Thinking out of the CFO box

    You need to go way beyond finance. You need to step up and fill other operating capacities.

    Relationship between CEO and CFO

    Synergy – if the CEO is the technical founder, take on the more outward-facing aspects; if the CEO is outward-facing and a rainmaker, try to take on as much of the internal operations as possible.

    Create an informal network of your peers

    There are always folks who are a little bit ahead of you in terms of scale and experience and complexity, and you can learn a ton from them. Branch out to other Venture funded CFOs.

    Capable management

    The whole thing about being a C-level executive in a venture backed company is that your competency and leadership need to scale faster than the company is scaling.

    Keeping sight of the bigger picture

    Remember to not only work IN the business, but to also work ON it. Similarly, to not just work IN yourself, but also to work ON yourself. Delegate lesser tasks to free up time to work on growing your capacity.

SD: Let’s talk about what it takes for a technology CFO to be successful. You’ve played that role, you’ve advised people in that role, what makes a successful Tech CFO?

MM: Well, I’d say it is the ability to go way beyond finance. I think, when a company isn’t fund raising, the financing role is pretty simple, and you have to find other ways to add value. Often the management teams at start-ups are incomplete and so there’s room to go way beyond finance and fill in other operating capacities. I’ve definitely done that a lot. I’d say within the finance realm, first of all you have to have a very clear understanding of all the nuts and bolts in the business, particularly because often those businesses are burning money and so you must understand ‘good burn’ vs ‘bad burn’. Most businesses these days hinges on profitable unit economics, and so even though the business as a whole might be in the red, if these customers are profitable, and you understand the nuances of customer mass, that’s kind of crucial. And then I would say the ability to translate. For example, if you’d just walk in to an exec meeting and rattle off a bunch of numbers and metrics, it’s sort of somewhat useful, but you have to go way deeper. As an example, if “churn” (the number of people who cancel your service) has moved in one direction, its somewhat useful to give the data points on the movement, but it is far more useful to understand the root cause and give good guidance. So again, it’s being able to go beyond the numbers.

The approach I’ve always taken to the CFO world is to define the role in a way that gives the CEO maximum leverage. What I mean by that is – if the CEO is very technical founder, then I’ve always tried to take on some of the outward facing aspects, so that the CEO would be able to be building and shipping product. Whereas if that CEO is a very outward facing CEO and a rainmaker, then I’ve tried to take on as much as the internal operations as possible, so that person could be out of the office and know that things are still running. To me the CFO is the right hand of the CEO, and therefore you have to govern yourself or kind of define the role in a way that has the most impact on the CEO.

SD: You’ve been a CFO on a full time basis and CFO on part time basis. What’s the difference?

MM: Huge difference. Again, take everything I’ve said about taking on more operating responsibility, in the context of full time. If you think about the core of a business – the core of any business in the technology business is building product and selling product, just to generalize. The rest is in support of that. In that context, finance is always important, but it’s not a core thing. It’s relatively horizontal. It can transfer the same functions from one company to the next. And so outsourcing the core nuts and bolts of finance makes all kind of sense. But where you run into trouble is when you outsource finance to someone, but then try to get that someone to do a whole bunch of other things – that just doesn’t work. So the big difference for me is that when I was full time I was going way beyond the finance role, whereas when I was part time I stuck to the core nuts and bolts of running a very tight back office, investor relations, budgeting, fundraising, reporting, etc.

SD: I’ve asked number of tech companies who are looking for finance help “what do you need?” and they said “well, we would like a Mark MacLeod”. You have a brand to you that says “start-up tech CFO”. How would you recommend they find their own Mark MacLeod?

MM: That’s a tough one. You know it’s funny. In retrospect, it might have taken the hard way to get my experience. My first start up was a client of mine and I came in with absolutely no experience and just kind of stumbled along. And because I was very focused on deals and fund raising in particular; if I didn’t feel like that company was on the trajectory to really grow massively, I’d move on. And that resulted in a bunch of things. I exited positively in a relatively short time frame, or me concluding that they weren’t going to be exiting in a relatively short time frame. But the point of all that is my learning and development was compressed and accelerated by moving to different companies and getting exposure to different start-ups, different stages in their life cycle, and that whole bit. So that’s one path.

I was very lucky because I got into start-ups very early, back in the late 90’s when anyone with a pulse was getting funded. The environment was pretty forgiving. So that could be a path today – someone who has kind of hustled around and has been involved in some fund raising, and has shown a propensity and an aptitude to be able to talk about things that are beyond the numbers.

But I’ll tell you… the whole thing about start-ups and venture capitalists is it’s all about the outliers. And while I’ve been part of some great businesses, the biggest learning opportunities and the biggest development, the most scope and the most exposure is when I was part of the outliers. Like Shopify and Freshbooks. So the point of that is hiring someone with that pedigree, even if they haven’t had the CFO title. If you’ve gone through Shopify’s growth, from 100 to 700 people, if you’ve gone through all the things that come with that and you understand how systems scale and you understand how to do really amazing investor reporting, and how to build sophisticated budgets and how to scale a finance function, that’s amazing experience. I’ve learned through trial and error that QuickBooks falls apart when you cross 100 employees. And then you end up having to go to a NetSuite or an Intact or something. Knowing that coming in, because you’ve come from a place with scale, would be pretty interesting.

So it’s really 2 different profiles. It is someone who is really helpful and has had some exposure through a few different companies so that they can pattern match. Or it’s someone who has come from a bigger company, one that the start-up aspires to be.

SD: Am I correct in saying that nobody can really hire Mark MacLeod because Mark learned it from the companies that he did the work in? I mean, you’re beyond that start-up age CFO that is young and has just enough experience but not too much, who’s not looking to take home too much cash and is more willing to put it down for the future. Do I understand that correctly?

MM: If someone wants to hire a Mark MacLeod, well a Mark MacLeod has been 2 decades in the making and is still being made, you know what I mean? They don’t exist. You have to hire someone who looks nothing like what I look like now. Hire someone who I was like 15-20 years ago, which means you’re really taking a chance. I got in because the environment was so frothy. And I would say that I stayed for 2 reasons – 1 maybe as you said, I don’t look like most CFO’s, because it’s never been just about the numbers for me, it’s always been about the strategic context around the numbers. So it was always the bigger picture. I’d say the thing that really helped make me stand out is I had a huge passion for venture capital. And for getting into the venture community and making deals happen. If a company is running out of money and hiring you helps them get money, then that should really sell itself. But in the early days that’s really how I got into a lot of start-ups.  When I was doing the part time CFO stuff, the real sweet spot was that I would take companies and get them ready for the next round of funding, I would raise it for them, and then stay on as their CFO. That’s how I was kind of paying my way. So it’s a different context.

SD: What’s the ideal CFO for you to work with?

MM: I don’t know that there is just one to be honest. If I am helping a company fundraise or helping them prepare for an exit, I think that in both cases the deal will very much be driven by the strength of the management team. It’s not like I simply want a technician in there because I can handle the strategy stuff. I’d be more than happy to work with a very strategic deal-making CFO. I think that doing great big deals is a team sport, not like an individual hero sport. I think I’m equally happy to work with an internal deal maker, as I am to work with someone who’s got super tight back office. I think the takeaway is that one way or the other, we need both. So if the person is just the big deal maker and the back office is not super tight, that’s going to make it harder for me to do what I do. One way or another we have to have both the substance and the spot.

SD: What advice would you give to new CFOs who are just at the start of their career?

MM: Talk to peers a lot. There’s always folks who are a little bit ahead of you in terms of scale and experience and complexity, and you can learn a ton from them. You could also create an informal network, talking to other venture funded CFOs and the portfolio. Makes a ton of sense. I think this is true not just for CFOs but for any role. The whole thing about being a C-level executive in a venture backed company is that your competency and leadership has to scale faster than the company is scaling. And so in that context, having a coach who can help you work through issues and help you scale is super important as well.

SD: How did you make time for important things? Things that were related to your career and employer, but there was no deadline attached to it?

MM: I think I have a certain level of self-awareness. So I knew that I needed to not only work IN the business but also work ON it. And similarly to not just work IN myself, but to also work ON myself. I never have been the kind of technician who is always dotting I’s and crossing T’s. As a result I was able to push that kind of work down to the right level and that gave me capacity to work on growing my capacity, if that makes sense.

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A CFO Success Story is a feature of Samuel’s CFO Blog, where Samuel Dergel follows up on his book, Guide to CFO Success, speaking with CFOs featured in CFO Moves and CFO Moves Canada, Samuel’s popular and comprehensive weekly report on CFO Movement across the USA and Canada.

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A CFO Success Story: Aidan Cullen, CFO of CliQr

Aidan Cullen

Aidan Cullen, CFO of CliQr

The following is from an interview with Aidan Cullen, recently hired as CFO of CliQr, as announced in CFO Moves. This interview was edited for clarity.

What has helped you become a successful CFO over the years?

I’ve always been a long term planner and thinker. I started my career in public accounting getting the fundamentals. I then went into internal audit consciously thinking about where I need to go for my success. That gave me an understanding of what’s underneath the hood of a company. From there I started to specialize in the functional roles and business partnerships, so I went to engineering and managed an engineering group worth about 120 million dollars. After that, I went into another company and managed a sales organization and was a business partner for sales services and support.

When you start to get into a specialized business like engineering, you look at all the portfolios and investments and really begin to understand how things roll in a company. Similarly, with sales you start to understand what incentivizes salespeople, what motivates them and how you get the most productivity out of them. Then you become more of a generalist and you start to move into and become more eligible for a CFO role. At that point you really have the depth to be able to go down a thousand feet and then come back up specifically when you’re dealing with the executive level management.

  • Quick Takes from Aidan on…

    Growing from Controller to CFO:
    A lot of us are very technically and operationally qualified and the next part of that is the chemistry and the synergy that you have with the executive team.

    How to move upwards and onwards:
    If you build up and broaden your experience and your accomplishments and consistently perform… I think that will open any door.​

    Networking and a new job:
    We spend so much time trying to build a network and then when we get into a new job we tend to forget about that network.

    Why CFO Peer Groups are important:
    It’s very important to keep a close check on what challenges other CFOs face in the market these days.

    Building your network:
    You should value your network and you should always think about building and expanding on your experiences.

You went from an engineering organization to a sales organization, both of which have very different requirements and very different world views. How did you transition at an early age to those perspectives? What did you learn from that?

I suppose I was just fortunate. I got in to the engineering role and the engineering VP at that stage got promoted to the general manager of a business unit that had a value of $1.7 billion dollars. So I was fortunate to move in with the VP and become the general manager’s number one finance person – the CFO. When I moved into the sales company, I specifically moved in as the number two. They didn’t have a CFO at the time and I moved in with the COO. The main concerns they had, operationally in the company, were in getting the financials restated due to the software changes that were going on, specifically around revenue recognition. In the company that I joined, several of the competing companies had their financial statements restated. Fortunately, because of my operational background in external audits and looking at the business side of things, I was able to take that role on and I spent a good year really reengineering the sales organization – specifically from an operational perspective. So that was just a bit of fortune and I just stepped up to the role. And when you actually have a bit of experience behind you, it’s nice to have that exciting challenge.

I’ve seen that a lot of CFOs who – while they were certainly smart – were at the right place at the right time. What was it about you that helped you get to that first CFO role?

I think it’s my assertiveness. It’s a little bit of planning and being willing to step up – having the energy level to step up to the next level and perform. As you start to get in, a lot of us are very technically and operationally qualified and the next part of that is the chemistry and the synergy that you have with the executive team and also with the CEO. It’s that business partnership that makes it all gel together.

What were some challenges you faced when you and the CEO thought differently? What have you done in your career that has made that CFO/CEO relationship work?

I think there are a few you areas that I would look at. The first that comes to mind is the ability to scale a company from, say, a 20 million dollar company to a 100 million dollar company. There are certain roads and paths to take. You would first look at the financial portfolios system or the ERP system and ask: which is the best one to scale? What are the key resources that you need to have? Each time you have to make some decision it impacts the business and may impact the CEO and executive team. So they’re truly critical decisions because they have a long term impact. That’s more the long term side of it.

On the operational side, I have the skills that I need from a sales operation perspective that I can use to go underneath the sales organization and understand the key issues associated with productivity, the sales model, the pricing and so forth. Because of this, sometimes the CEO or the VP of Sales do not see eye to eye with me. Through my perspective on certain things, I can justify it from the numbers, from looking at the facts, looking at trends, building them out and being able to start to perfect models and sales projections. Because of this, I started to gain respect from my peers and especially the CEO and then I moved forward and it got better. Everything started to get better.

What can you share about the process that moved you forward to your new role?

I think the key is networking. If you build up and broaden your experience and your accomplishments and consistently perform – especially in the CFO capacity – I think that will open any door. I think that’s the key to success. In my case, I’ve worked in many companies and I’ve met a lot of VCs and board members. I consistently keep in contact with them and these doors remain opened and the friendship and partnership are there.

One of the VCs on the board here opened up the door for me and connected me with CliQr. From there it just took the normal steps to get the position. I have kept in contact with all the top financial recruiters over the years – whether I am looking for an opportunity or not. If I can touch base, even if it’s only once a year, I’ll try to keep an eye on them and say hello. We spend so much time trying to build a network and then when we get into a new job we tend to forget about that network. And it doesn’t take much to maintain these relationships.

What tool do you use to ensure that you stay in front of everyone you want to stay in front of on a regular basis?

That’s a difficult one. I don’t have any specific tool. I kind of identify it and put it in my calendar on a quarterly basis. I do like sports, though. I tend to see if I can play golf with some of the executives. I might go to an event with them. Some of the banks that I deal with invite me out. For example, one of the financial recruiters is having an event here and it’s typically at an event like that where I catch up with my peers in the industry and have a drink and socialize.

Another process that has worked for me in the past is I will meet with CFOs on a semi-annual basis.We go to lunch and without getting into numbers we discuss the business process and we go into networking. The world of finance changes an awful lot. Technology changes and business and financial market changes. It’s very important to keep a close check on what challenges other CFOs face in the market these days. I enjoy that. We spend time together sitting around the table and then we reconvene in another six months’ time. It’s a great forum for keeping pace with what’s going on in the markets.

What are you excited about joining CliQr?

CliQr represents a fundamental shift in the IT market. We’ve seen the internet bring a lot of change. It has changed almost everything. The cloud is today’s internet in my mind. It has the ability to change everything about the way business interacts with information technology. CliQr is pivotal in this change. It plays a major role. It’s a transformation from the old rigid data centers to today’s desire to logically place applications across diverse environments and include the data centers across private and public clouds all in one place. This is what CliQr does. In my mind, the market’s real, the product is very very real and we’ve got really smart investors in the company (like Google Ventures and Foundation Capital -to name a couple). My colleagues here are very smart. It’s a nice working environment. To me, these are all key ingredients to success.

What are some of your objectives to help the company along and make a bigger impact in its success?

The major one is to scale the company. CliQr is at the point where it has gone through with a Series C and financing and we’re at that stage of growth. The next stage is global expansion and building out the enterprise and the sales into the various geographic regions. Those are the major challenges and in confronting them I bring in head counts and business processes. I did the same thing at Gigamon, where I expanded and brought in a new ERP system for a manufacturing company and broadened the sales geographic regions.

Where do you hope to take this?

I think one would always love to take it to IPO. Companies are not sold now, they are bought. So the strategic intention is to build this up to a company that can go IPO. I have not brought a company to an IPO process yet. I’ve filed an F1, but I’ve never been on the other side as a public CFO.

What advice would you give people trying to build themselves up on a path to success as CFO?

You should value your network and you should always think about building and expanding on your experiences. Try to look at the end of every year and assure that you’ve added some accomplishments to your resume or background. I think it’s important to meet regularly and get a pulse check with your peers to see if you’re keeping touch with how things are working out. Specifically, your skill set versus the market. Finally, I think it’s good to follow smart money. These days we’ve got some super VCs in the Valley. They do an amazing job and when you can actually get a line through to these VCs, they truly do mitigate the risk that we have as CFOs. In looking at opportunities, these are the people you should start to follow.

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A CFO Success Story is a feature of Samuel’s CFO Blog, where Samuel Dergel follows up on his book, Guide to CFO Success, speaking with CFOs featured in CFO Moves, Samuel’s popular and comprehensive weekly report on CFO Movement across the USA.

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A CFO Success Story: Christine Russell, CFO of UniPixel

Christine Russell, CFO of UniPixel

The following is from an interview with Christine Russell, recently hired as CFO of UniPixel, as announced in CFO Moves. This interview was edited for clarity.

SD: Congratulations on your move to UniPixel. What are you excited about in your new role?

CR: I have been a Silicon Valley CFO for 30+ years and I’ve been involved in all kinds of different technologies. I’ve worked in many different industries, but there is a fundamental formula consisting of three elements for success that I’ve found in my companies and if they have this formula to start with, then they are going to meet with success.

First, the company really needs to be serving a large market (in the multi-billions) and that way in your growth cycle if you’re capturing only 10% of market share, you’re still a company with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. I’ve never enjoyed going to companies that are targeting a niche market where you don’t need 80% of the market and you’re a 200 million dollar company and there’s nowhere to go from there.

The second criteria is the product needs to be something that’s really useful and can be differentiated in the market. It can be either technological advantages, cost advantages, usability or some combination of these. It has to be something that people really need, and not something that we need to go out and convince everyone they need. Finally, the CEO needs to be a leader – somebody thoughtful, decisive, and with a bias for action. They need to have an impeccable reputation in the industry. Someone I’m really proud to present to investors and who customers can stand beside. To me, UniPixel has all of these elements – a multi-billion dollar addressable market in touch screen devices that have both technological and cost advantages and a CEO with a deep background in display and optical and who has run public companies before with great success.

  • Quick Takes from Christine on… 

    The formula for a great company:
    1) Serves a large market.
    2) Creates a useful and differentiated product.
    3) Has a really well-rounded CEO.

    Networking: Successful networking means making lifelong friends and giving back.

    Successful Female CFOs: Executives need to make their career a priority. There is no such thing as balance. It’s a compromise. It’s what you choose to do with your life.

    Females on Boards: Recruit your board by individual, irrespective of race, sex, country of origin. Hire the best for the board. Period.

    Managing your Board: Over-communication and transparency creates trust.

    The Best CEOs for CFOs: Confident CEOs are able to share their powerbase with the CFO and treat them as a trusted partner.

    Advice to up-and-coming female CFOs: Be absolutely fearless. Brainstorm with your other executives, and shut up and listen – you will learn a lot.

SD: How do CFOs get matched with great companies? What did you do to get to this company?

CR: I was approached for the UniPixel opportunity by a colleague who I knew in Silicon Valley for many years. He introduced me to the CEO, Jeff Hawthorne, and told me that he had worked with Jeff before and that he was an excellent and effective CEO. He told me that Jeff was respected for his deep knowledge in the display and optical industry. So a personal recommendation is extremely valuable. Always.

The way I joined my prior company was through a board member who was a committee chair who I knew from professional organizations. So again, it’s about who you know.

SD: How did you become so well networked?

CR: First of all, because I don’t really like the concept of networking, I think of people as friends. Friends help one another. I’ll tell you a little story about how I came to know some of these people, especially the gentleman who recommended me at Vendavo: I belong to a professional organization called Financial Executives International and I always enjoyed attending the Silicon Valley meetings. One day they approached me and asked if I would be willing to become the president of the organization. I was doing an IPO for a company at the time so I said I was too busy. I was set straight by one of my corporate outside lawyers. He looked at me and asked if I enjoyed going to the organization and if I found it helpful. So I said oh yeah, the people are wonderful. And he said, so when do you give back? I left his office and I immediately called up the board and told them I would accept the position. I have no idea how I did that while I was doing an IPO, but I did it, and then those people went on to become very good friends of mine and they really helped me. They help you and you help them.

SD: Most Senior Finance Executives don’t do enough networking.

CR: No they don’t, and I think they’re missing an opportunity to meet people who can be a lifetime friend and find out about opportunities that go both ways. They look out for you and you look out for them. And I will say that executive recruiting certainly has its own place. A search firm located me through my LinkedIn profile for a previous position that I held at Evans Analytical Group.

SD: If you look at the percentage of women at the CFO level, it’s not representative of the number of females in finance. What is your take on that?

CR: First of all, I think there are more women in HR and finance than there are in many other positions. I think that you have to have a certain amount of ambition and time that you’re willing to devote away from your family if you want to see the executive staff table. I was once on a panel where one of the panelists got a question asking a woman how she balanced her work and home life. Her response was you don’t. She devoted a lot of time to her work life at the expense of her home life. There is no such thing as balance. It’s a compromise. It’s what you choose to do with your life.

SD: What are your thoughts on the social discussion about females on boards?

CR: I’ve always thought that you should recruit your board by individual, irrespective of race, sex, country of origin, or anything that is unrelated to finding the best people you can who will accelerate your business. I know I’m going against the grain by saying that, but I think that a board member has to be highly qualified to be a board member. Especially in these times of challenges and activist investors. You need to have the very best qualified individual you can find.

SD: How have you as CFO managed to get the best relationship possible with the board that you had at various companies throughout your career?

CR: I have learned to over-communicate with the board. I will communicate very regularly and frequently and I wait for people to tell me “Christine, quit calling me!” Then I know that I’ve done enough communicating. I’m very transparent with them if there are problems or issues. If there is anything they don’t like about something, they can talk to me about it. But over-communication and transparency create trust.

SD: Some CFOs have said that the CEO can sometimes get in the way of effective communication with the board. What’s your take on that?

CR: I think that’s a valid comment. Just as there are all kinds of personalities of people in the world, there’s all kinds of personalities of CEOs. Some are very transparent and some are very controlling, but you’re not going to have someone become CEO if they don’t have a controlling personality. Some are more concerned about protecting their relationship with the board and trying to keep that relationship exclusive, seeing as it’s about power. More confident CEOs are able to share that powerbase with the CFO and treat them as a trusted partner.

SD: Where do you get the energy for all of the many accomplishments you have had in your career?

CR: I don’t know what else to do! I don’t have hobbies, I don’t play an instrument, and I can’t sing or dance… I’m a working cat! That’s what I do. And I’m good at it and I think as long as I have the ability to contribute and help create jobs, companies and ROI for investors, I’m going to keep doing it.

SD: What advice would you give to a young female CFO?

CR: I would say that you have to be absolutely fearless. One of the things that I did wrong earlier in my career was I thought I had all of the answers, but if you don’t get buy-in with some of the other members of the executive staff, it doesn’t really matter. Enter in the brainstorming conversations with the executives. Ask for everyone’s ideas, no matter how crazy those ideas may be. Create a common mind rather than coming in with all of the answers. Shut up and ask others what they think!

SD: What are you most excited about in your new role?

CR: I’m really excited about this being a pivotal time for UniPixel. We just acquired the Atmel touch film technology and the production facility in Colorado Springs. We are combining the best aspects of the UniPixel technology that we worked on with Kodak and the Atmel technology to come up with something that is more than just one plus one. I’m also very excited about the CEO I’m working with. The number of people he knows and who greeted him at a recent information display convention in San Jose was very heartening for me.

I recently visited the newly acquired Colorado Springs facility and the energy level there is amazing. These people are now able to work with a much smaller, more nimble and flexible company rather than being under a small vision of a large company. The energy level there is still like a start-up.

SD: What is the top thing you need to accomplish in this new phase of the company?

CR: Finance and admin are thinly staffed. I have to get comfortable with a minimum amount of support and identify the positions that I need to upgrade, as well as bringing in proper software and processes for finance. Even though that’s a lot of work, it’s an advantage because you’re not inheriting someone else’s ideas for a business.

SD: Is there something that you feel you would like to tell the CFOs who read this blog?

CR: Stick together! Form groups and partnerships. Join professional organizations and become a cohesive group so that if you’re ever in a bind –finding yourself in need of a boilerplate template for a sales commission plan for staff delivered software, for example – you can pick up the phone, email or text another CFO and ask if they have ever dealt with something similar. Those kinds of professional contacts and friendships are amazingly helpful and allow you to shortcut so many of the things that you would otherwise be handling alone.

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A CFO Success Story is a feature of Samuel’s CFO Blog, where Samuel Dergel follows up on his book, Guide to CFO Success, speaking with CFOs featured in CFO Moves, Samuel’s popular and comprehensive weekly report on CFO Movement across the USA.

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CFOs: It’s not just about Finance anymore

The Shifting Role of Chief Financial OfficersWhat value does the Chief Financial Officer bring to the company they work for? According to recent research by American Express, CFOs around the globe believe they are:

    • Seeing an increase in influence at their companies, and
    • Have more input than ever on improving their company’s ability to deliver value to customer.

CFOs also believe that they need to improve their skills in many areas, including some that are not thought of as “finance skills” such as:

    • Strategic thinking
    • Internal alliance builder
    • Conflict resolution
    • Global business acumen, and
    • Logistics acumen

It is nice to see that CFOs are more positive and upbeat on the value that they bring to their companies. I am a big believer in the value that a CFO can bring to the company they work for. I am also a big supporter for CFOs developing themselves further to meet the real needs of the people they work for.

The question I have is this: Are CFOs really adding value in their environment over and above what is expected in Finance? Maybe. The actual reality is not the perception that CFOs have of themselves, it is the perception that the people that CFOs report to that is most important.

Perception is reality. The perception of the people that CFOs work for is the reality that really matters.

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(Note to readers: I apologize for my absence on this blog for the past months. While my CFO Moves blog has been delivering every Monday morning like clockwork, I have been spending a significant amount of time recently on my upcoming book, Guide to CFO Success: Leadership Strategies for Corporate Financial Professionals. I am now in the production process with my publisher, John Wiley & Sons, and I’m looking forward to your feedback when the book is released in March 2014. Hopefully I will get to meet you in person as I speak at conferences and events in 2014. If you’d like to have me discuss my book at your local CFO event, ask the organizers to reach out to me to see if I’m available.)

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Show your CFO some Love

Most of my blogs are directed to CFOs.This blog is written for people that benefit from having a great CFO working with them.

Let us count the ways why you should show your CFO some love this Valentine’s Day

1) They make sure you get paid. This is the person ultimately responsible to ensure the company has the cash it needs when it needs it. This person loses sleep over the company’s cash flow so that you don’t have to lose sleep over yours.

2) They care. CFOs are sometimes demonized as Mr. or Ms. “No”. In fact, CFOs spend time agonizing over decisions that need to be made so that you can benefit. You will never know when a proposal crosses the CFOs desk that might have a negative impact on you, and they say “No” to it. But they do.

3) They are loveable people. Really. They are. I speak to a lot of them and they are really good, honest, decent people. If you feel that they’re not, maybe by showing them some love you will benefit too.

Why will you be showing your CFO some Love today?

Contact Information

You can reach Samuel by:

Telephone
San Francisco: +1 (415) 738-2070
Montreal: +1 (514) 907-0925

Email: [email protected]